Much of the issue is that city planners like it that way. The building codes require it, and when they don't, they'll have design review requirements where the planners will make you change it.
There's a common modern look called a 5-over-1 which usually looks like a giant box made out of four different colored Lego sets. The random different colors are forced on them by planners who think it provides "articulation".
The giant box look is because of double-stair requirements, which the US thinks provides fire safety but don't, and which force all big residential builds to be hotel-shaped. The PNW actually doesn't have these rules, although the rest of the country hasn't noticed yet.
> The PNW actually doesn't have these rules, although the rest of the country hasn't noticed yet.
For all our warts, I continue to believe the PNW is the best area of the country to live. I'm obviously biased. But I've lived a lot of places and I keep coming back here.
I live in the biggest one in PNW and it still feels super small. A friend who moved here from SF (a relatively small city itself) and was surprised how small Seattle feels, even in comparison to SF -- he was wondering where 3 quarters of city disappeared to.
I'm thinking strong writing communities, world-class art museums (Portland Art Museum is good, while Seattle Art Museum is not so well funded compared to the east coast -- our billionaires don't care for art), great universities with top non-professional programs (UW is really good, but is not an elite college), etc. The food scene here is also not great -- it's got pockets of good eats, but in general not a foodie city -- nothing is here among the best. There are too many eat-to-live rather than live-to-eat types. (granted, Portland has a much better food scene — especially Thai and food carts —than Seattle, but it's not super diverse compared to most big cities like NYC or Chicago).
Even in tech, it’s pretty much a company town. Most people work for the few big names. Someone from Silicon Valley who lives here now told me Seattle has tech but has not really a strong startup ecosystem because most people are self selected corporate types (all of top 10 market cap tech companies are here, either HQ or branch). People who come to Seattle here mostly come to draw big tech salaries and be comfortable, not to change the world. Apart from a few people at the top of their fields, there is no sense of hunger here, not like NYC or LA or SF where people take risks to go there to make it big.
Like I said, it works for many folks, but if you're used to NYC and Chicago (or even SF), there's a lot that's missing.
I think it’s 4 over 1 here in the Seattle area. Concrete floor one with retail followed by 4 wooden floors of apartments, although that is changing to 5 over 2 in the last few years. Developers love them because they are easier to build and maximize sellable space.
The numbers actually aren't floors, they're sections of the building code. 1 is nonflammable materials like concrete and 5 is most flammable but cheapest. (Pretty sure everyone thinks it means # floors though.)
4 is mass timber, which is a newer very promising material. The article mentions the airport used it, but you can build towers from it quickly, safely, and less chance of hearing your neighbors through the wall.
Oh, that makes sense. Ya, 5 over 1 makes sense in that context. They just happened to be height/floor limited as well compared to a pure concrete/steel construction.
You can thank former Seattle CM Sally Clark almost singlehandedly for the articulation bullshit. And a lot of the dumb townhouse rules that made them all identical for a decade.
And you know design review was created by an initiative on an off election? 15% of registered voters voted in favor.
I think design review could be overturned constitutionally. But few people seem to focus on that issue for long enough to learn how to organize around it.
Yeah, but that just doesn't matter. Downtown Seattle is tiny, and it's an even smaller proportion of the space where we could be building housing across the city. Like 2%.
There's a common modern look called a 5-over-1 which usually looks like a giant box made out of four different colored Lego sets. The random different colors are forced on them by planners who think it provides "articulation".
The giant box look is because of double-stair requirements, which the US thinks provides fire safety but don't, and which force all big residential builds to be hotel-shaped. The PNW actually doesn't have these rules, although the rest of the country hasn't noticed yet.